"Not at all." Roger shook his hand warmly. "Take care of yourself over there. Hawaii's a little too much like Heaven to be altogether safe. So long, my boy, so long."
He moved away. John Quincy saw him kiss Barbara affectionately and with her friends join the slow procession ashore.
The young man from Boston stepped to the rail. Several hundred voices were calling admonitions, promises, farewells. With that holiday spirit so alien to John Quincy's experience, those ashore were throwing confetti. The streamers grew in number, making a tangle of color, a last frail bond with the land. The gangplank was taken up, clumsily the President Tyler began to draw away from the pier. On the topmost deck a band was playing—Aloha-oe, the sweetest, most melancholy song of good-by ever written. John Quincy was amazed to feel a lump rising in his throat.
The frail, gay-colored bond was breaking now. A thin veined hand at John Quincy's side waved a handkerchief. He turned to find Mrs. Maynard. There were tears on her cheeks.
"Silly old woman," she said. "Sailed away from this town a hundred and twenty-eight times. Actual count—I keep a diary. Cried every time. What about? I don't know."
The ship was well out in the harbor now. Barbara came along, Jennison trailing her. The girl's eyes were wet.
"An emotional lot, we Islanders," said the old lady. She put her arm about the girl's slim waist. "Here's another one of 'em. Living way off the way we do, any good-by at all—it saddens us." She and Barbara moved on down the deck.
Jennison stopped. His eyes were quite dry. "First trip out?" he inquired.
"Oh, yes," replied John Quincy.
"Hope you'll like us," Jennison said. "Not Massachusetts, of course, but we'll do our best to make you feel at home. It's a way we have with strangers."